for thoughts and other useless things

a solid, transparent barrier lies between them. it moulds into their body shapes and allows them to wrap around each other, but creates a tiny yet noticible distance between their hearts. he doesn’t know it exists, but she can feel its pressure on every fragment of her body. every time she moves closer she can feel its force pushing her away, as if a thousand tiny hands were softly caressing her skin while simultaneously guiding her in a different direction.

he brushes his fingers against her cheeks to signify that he is able to touch her, feel her, and make her feel. she closes her eyes to escape the intensity of the moment, and draws into herself as fireworks of ideas and hypotheticals erupt in her mind

flashing lights come from all directions, travelling through a void of darkness and splashing around her. there’s no beauty in the fragments of light, yet even if there were she would shy away, preferring the darkness over illumination of any kind.

glimpses of her surroundings create intermittent stories that she plays out in her head, but they all amount to nothing. and every time she hears familiarity or difference she thinks of him.

the heavy mist obscures her view of the world so that she cannot see more than a stride ahead. she reaches forward to see her arm disappear in its thick yet dispersed emptiness, but her fingers brush up against a cool glass-like substance.

she blinks, as if closing her eyes momentarily could clear the mist, but it’s not just inside her head. when she opens her eyes it’s still there. it surrounds her, and she can feel it closing in and enveloping her body until the edges are blurry and she forgets where the boundaries were once clear. or if they existed at all.

as she stands over the mess she’s made, a mosaic of imagines clutter her mind. the reflection of sunlight through various shards of glass beam back at her, entreating her to shield her eyes and reminding her to shield her heart. for when something is so fragile and easily broken the remainder is never pretty.

thirty eight faces meet her eyes as she glares defiantly, and stare straight through her even as she shifts her gaze. they tilt with every movement, soften with every moment of weakness and harden with every reminder of reality. she looks at them all, one by one, wondering if the different angles will show one face with less exposure. less pain. but every time her eyes refocus the image adjusts itself to reflect the same thing over and over again.

the curtains draw in a darkness that separates her from the rest of the world. beyond the vacuum she has created and filled with emptyness, the problems of the world that she must solve linger in the air. one by one they queue, waiting for the curtains to crack so they can flood in and claim their time and space.

she lays on the floor, eliminating all contact with the outside world. she shatters the phone, destroys the computer and blocks the gaps under the doors with sandpaper and old greeting cards. she tapes down the floorboards and blocks the sink and gets under the covers and closes her eyes.

a broken umbrella lays on the floor. chords of metal are meshed, intertwined and mangled, ripping through the plastic material. once a shield, its punctures have rendered it useless against nature’s elements, and it is no longer able to perform what’s required.

she remembers when she acquired it, not wanting to leave without it because it was so pretty and special. she remembers how it made her feel safe, and when it protected her. not very well, but just enough.

he shakes the water out of his hair and hands her a towel. she drapes it across herself, and looks down at what she can only describe as an old friend.

sometimes in the silence the buzzing starts. the whirring, persistent, annoying buzzing that represents realisation. at first it’s hushed, but with every second that passes by it grows louder, picking up fragments of understanding and snowballing it together. following all the confusion that once saturated this space, the condensed realisation triggers a chain reaction.

anticipation. it drips off the walls until it creates a waterfall that surrounds her, trapping the rhythm of a heart that’s beating a little too fast. the vibrations pass through the walls and dissolve on the other side, whereas she cannot.